July 2010

One of the truisms of life is that most of us hate being told what to do.

No one - unless they like being ridden like a pony by their leather-clad mistress with a gag ball in their mouth - likes being ordered around.

However, we tend to cop it on the chin when the directive comes from people who are older than us, smarter, better-credentialled or generally just wiser about the ways of the world.

Most of us will also swallow our resentment if we're being told what to do by a person who actively puts themselves in danger for our sake - such as members of the military, police, firies and paramedics.

Then there are guys like this - 20-year-old Liberal National Party candidate Wyatt Roy - who's so excited about becoming the "youngest member elected to any Australian parliament" I'm surprised he hasn't soiled himself during one of his press conferences ...

You know the best thing about buying a cheap car nowadays? It's got all the gadgets and options that expensive vehicles had 10 years ago.

Remember when only prestige cars had those chunky black key rings with buttons to open the central locking and turn off the immobiliser? That's standard now on your entry-level Mazda.

Get inside a bargain-basement 2010 Corolla or Barina and the thing looks like the inside of a Stealth Bomber it has so many lights and sensors.

I'd never owned a new car before last year and was staggered by all the stuff I got for my quite modest amount of money but, then again, my last ride was a 1973 Holden HQ with a roll cage that you had to clutch-start some mornings.

Thanks to mankind's never-ending quest to "improve" on his environment, your average supermarket 10-speed bike also has much the same technology on it today as Lance Armstrong's ride did when he won his first Tour de France in 1999 ...

Many years ago I did a theatresports course with a group of lovely people and one of our number was a swarthy, confident guy who almost leaped out of his skin to get involved in each and every task we were given.

As you do during coffee breaks, I asked him what was the attraction of theatresports and he said he'd been a chronic stutterer for most of his life and, a few years before, had completed a therapy course that had "cured" him.

"I was the guy who hid in the dark at a parties, if I even went to a party. I married the first girl who'd talk to me. I went nowhere in my job. I got teased, even as an adult. I was miserable. I was a cripple," he said.

Once he gained his voice, however, he felt as if he'd been reborn. He could talk to people with ease, make himself understood in any company. He was no longer the butt of jokes and, he discovered, he was attractive to women other than his wife ...

Whatever the case, sometimes you just want to catch up with a couple of mates and have a few quiet ales.

Nothing massive. Maybe watch a bit of footy on the big screen at the pub, talk a bit of gibber, perhaps strike up a conversation with an attractive girl if she happens to be around, but, if she's not, no dramas. You just want a mellow, hassle-free evening.

The key to a successful such night is having the right pedigree of mates to ask along because you only need one turd in the punchbowl to ruin the flavour and the evening.

My absolute highlight of this year's Tour de France, in fact any year's Tour de France, has to be Carlos Barredo and Rui Costa coming to blows last week.

I say "coming to blows" because you couldn't call what they attempted a "fist-fight" or a "punch up" - it looked more like two flamingos trying to slap the feathers off each other, except one bloke was using a bicycle wheel to do it.

It probably wouldn't shock many people that, when the RMS Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg, "women and children" were the first people encouraged to get off the ship.

What might surprise you, however, is that the richest blokes (those fat cats of privilege travelling in first class) actually had a lower survival rate (about 34 per cent) than women who were travelling in third-class steerage (49 per cent survival rate).

The threat of death has a way of crystallising social attitudes and I suspect it's a rare man or woman who wouldn't give their own life to save that of a child.

I thus tend to give credence to the way a boatload of socially and racially mixed passengers act when they think they're all going to drown, and who they decide to let live ...

The famous story about physicist Sir Isaac Newton is that he "discovered" gravity after an apple fell from a tree and hit him on the head.

Like most stories, there's a little more to it than that, but the shiny red fruit has since gone down in history as a symbol for inspiration striking at an unexpected time.

It was also the founding reference for Apple Computers, which used a drawing of a contemplative Newton under a tree as its first logo back in 1976, before the celebrated "apple with a bite out of it" logo was created in '77 by graphic designer Rob Janoff * ...

So, about 12.45pm on the day I wrote this open letter to Tony Abbott, I got an email from his press secretary, Claire Kimball, telling me that the Leader of the Opposition had enjoyed my missive.

Mr Abbott was willing to take me up on my offer of being seduced as a voter and suggested we get together for a "coffee/beer".

That very afternoon. In my own suburb. At a venue of my choice.

Be still my black, swinging-voter heart!

And that's what happened: Tony Abbott and I had a schooner at a very noisy pub with Claire, as well as his daughter Louise, and if you want to know a little more about the man who could be our prime minister (and his daughter), you'll read on.

Oh, and I guarantee you'll enjoy this far more if you have this song playing in the background ...

It features a young boy driving a "truck" he's made through a sand pit: it's just a block of wood, with wheels and eyes painted on it, and the conceit of the commercial is this kid is somehow deprived because he's had to make his own toy.

Cut to the mum walking into the store and studying a wall of identical plastic trucks made in China and, voila, mum's suddenly a genius.

I wonder if she also took her son to McDonald's on the way home, split a two-litre bottle of coke with the kid, all the while breathing second-hand smoke on the boy - because as acts of parental laziness they strike me as slightly less objectionable than does discouraging a child's creativity ...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far way, I had an opportunity to pash actress Brooke Shields.

It was a one-off date in Manhattan, we were both pretty drunk and, as I dropped her back to her Upper East Side apartment, she invited me upstairs, then went in for the smooch.

I backed off, muttering something about my girlfriend (from whom I've long since split), got back in the yellow cab and went home - all of which raises the question "Why go out with Brooke in the first place if I was in a relationship?"

At the time I was working for one of those edifying American celebrity tabloid magazines that chase royals into cement pylons. I rationalised dinner and drinks with a movie star as priceless research, making "contacts" ... whatever ...

My name is Sam de Brito, I'm 41 years old, in a de facto relationship (with a woman) and have a three-month-old daughter. I earn less than you but more than most blokes who never go into the office and work in their underpants.

I voted for Kevin Rudd in the last federal election but can tell you with a certainty approaching drooling, stubborn idiocy that Labor will not get my vote in the next NSW election.

In short, I'm open to your advances Tone, I even live in your electorate (though we're in different surf clubs); I'm your absolute legs-open swinging voter and, what's more, I'm angry with the way the Prime Minister I voted for three years ago has been deposed by a bunch self-important suits I've never even heard of ...

One of the interesting blindspots of hate crime legislation in this country is who it excludes.

We've come to accept that if a person violently targets a religious group like Jews or Muslims, or someone victimises or vilifies a person simply because they are homosexual, their action may be regarded as a "hate crime".

However, the reality is that hate crime legislation is often nothing more than a big mummy hug to politically powerful groups that are well-organised and able to mobilise voters against governments that don't treat them as politically powerful.

Otherwise, you have to ask why rape, or any crime that targets a person on the basis of their gender is not considered a "hate crime?" ...

The Tenth Man, a 1985 novel by Graham Greene, tells the story of a group of World War II French prisoners who are forced to submit to a decimation order by their German captors.

The thirty or so inmates draw straws and when the three to die are selected, one of the men chosen is a wealthy Parisian lawyer who trades everything he owns with a poor countryman, Janvier, to take his place in the firing squad.

Janvier's mother and sister inherit the rich lawyer, Chavel's, house and all his assets and live as wealthy women after the war's end.

However, the sister, Therese, is torn by the desire for revenge on Chavel, the man she feels swindled her brother's life away from him ...

Comments Terms & Conditions

When posting comments on our blogs, you agree to be bound by our terms and conditions.
Comments that are offensive, defamatory, unsuitable or that breach any aspects of the terms and conditions will be deleted.